Detailed Action
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This is a final action for application number 18/478,984 in response to a Request for Continued Examination filed on 06/18/2026; the original application filed on 09/29/2023.
Claims 1-9, 11-20 and 22 are currently pending and have been considered below.
Claims 1, 19 and 20 are independent claims.
Claims 10 and 21 have been cancelled
Claim 22 is new.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant’s submission filed on 06/18/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments with respect to claims 1-9, 11-20 and 22 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-5, 11-13, 18-20 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. (US 2026/0046738 A1) in view of Do et al. (US 2024/0155448 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 19 and 20, a method comprising: monitoring, by a processing system including at least one processor, a condition of a mobile device while the mobile device is connected to a terrestrial network, [At block 710, the UE 110/201 determines whether a service based handover condition is met. At block 720, the UE 110/201 switches from a first cell to a second cell if the service based handover condition is met, where the first cell is one of an NTN cell and a TN cell, the second cell is the other of the NTN cell and the TN cell, (Xu et al., Paragraph 70)],
determining, by the processing system, that the condition satisfies a trigger for switching, to a non-terrestrial network, [where the first cell is one of an NTN cell and a TN cell, the second cell is the other of the NTN cell and the TN cell, (Xu et al., Paragraphs 46 and 70)],
and sending, by the processing system in response to the determining, a first instruction to the mobile device wherein the first instruction causes the mobile device to disconnect from the terrestrial network and connect to a non-terrestrial network, [The gNB of the NTN cell 152 may transmit a CHO command to the UE 110. The CHO command includes a condition #1 associated with a candidate TN-cell-1 and a condition #2 associated with a candidate TN-cell-2, (Xu et al., Paragraph 54)],
Lee et al. fails to explicitly teach that the condition comprises a current battery charge level of the mobile device,
Do et al. teaches that the terminal 110 may identify whether a battery level of the terminal 110 is less than a battery threshold value. When the battery level of the terminal 110 is less than the battery threshold value, the terminal 110 may perform operation 807, wherein operation 807 represents a handover to NR cell, (Do et al., Paragraph 165),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify Lee et al. by including that the condition comprises a current battery charge level of the mobile device, (Do et al., Paragraph 165), in order to perform an emergency service, upon a handover to an NR cell that does not support a reduced capability (RedCap) function, (Do et al., Paragraph 16).
Regarding claim 2, the method of claim 1, wherein the condition further comprises a strength of a signal received by the mobile device from a network element of the terrestrial network, [In R17, additional CHO conditions are introduced for NTN specific CHO due to the NTN radio characteristics, i.e., the variation in signal strength or signal quality between cell-center and cell-edge is not so pronounced, (Xu et al., Paragraph 29)].
Regarding claim 3, the method of claim 2, wherein the condition satisfies the trigger when a current value of the strength of the signal falls below a predefined threshold value, [the service based handover condition may indicate one or more of: a service type of the UE is associated with a specific 5QI, a latency requirement of a service of the UE is below than a threshold of latency, a data rate of the service is higher than a threshold of rate, a data amount of the service is higher than a threshold of amount, or a time length that data buffered in the UE pending for transmission is higher than a threshold of time, (Xu et al., Paragraph 45)].
Regarding claim 4, the method of claim 1, wherein the condition further comprises a bandwidth experienced by the mobile device while connected to the terrestrial network, [the service based handover condition may indicate one or more of: a service type of the UE is associated with a specific 5QI, a latency requirement of a service of the UE is below than a threshold of latency, a data rate of the service is higher than a threshold of rate, a data amount of the service is higher than a threshold of amount, or a time length that data buffered in the UE pending for transmission is higher than a threshold of time, (Xu et al., Paragraph 45)].
Regarding claim 5, the method of claim 4, wherein the condition satisfies the trigger when a current value of the bandwidth falls below a predefined threshold value, [the service based handover condition may indicate one or more of: a service type of the UE is associated with a specific 5QI, a latency requirement of a service of the UE is below than a threshold of latency, a data rate of the service is higher than a threshold of rate, a data amount of the service is higher than a threshold of amount, or a time length that data buffered in the UE pending for transmission is higher than a threshold of time, (Xu et al., Paragraph 45)].
Regarding claim 11, the method of claim 1, wherein the condition satisfies the trigger when the current battery charge level of the mobile device falls below a predefined threshold battery charge level, and a connection to the non-terrestrial network will consume the current battery charge level more slowly than a connection to the terrestrial network, [when the signal quality of the LTE cell 471 deteriorate, higher transmission power is required, and thus, power consumption of the terminal 110 may increase, (Do et al., Paragraph 127)].
Regarding claim 12, the method of claim 1, wherein the condition further comprises an availability of a service or an application via the terrestrial network, [the first cell may be a TN cell, and the second cell may be an NTN cell. The service based handover condition may indicate one or more of: a service type of the UE is not associated with a specific 5QI, a latency requirement of a service of the UE is higher than a threshold of latency, a data rate of the service is below than a threshold of rate, a data amount of the service is below than a threshold of amount, or a time length that data buffered in the UE pending for transmission is below than a threshold of time, (Xu et al., Paragraph 46)].
Regarding claim 13, the method of claim 12, wherein the condition satisfies the trigger when the service or the application is unavailable via the terrestrial network but available via the non-terrestrial network, [the first cell may be a TN cell, and the second cell may be an NTN cell. The service based handover condition may indicate one or more of: a service type of the UE is not associated with a specific 5QI, a latency requirement of a service of the UE is higher than a threshold of latency, a data rate of the service is below than a threshold of rate, a data amount of the service is below than a threshold of amount, or a time length that data buffered in the UE pending for transmission is below than a threshold of time, (Xu et al., Paragraph 46)].
Regarding claim 18, the method of claim 1, further comprising:
continuing, by the processing system, to monitor the condition of the mobile device while the mobile device is connected to the non-terrestrial network, [At block 710, the UE 110/201 determines whether a service based handover condition is met. At block 720, the UE 110/201 switches from a first cell to a second cell if the service based handover condition is met, where the first cell is one of an NTN cell and a TN cell, the second cell is the other of the NTN cell and the TN cell, (Xu et al., Paragraph 70)],
determining, by the processing system, that the condition satisfies a trigger for switching back to a terrestrial network access, [the first cell may be a TN cell, and the second cell may be an NTN cell. The service based handover condition may indicate one or more of: a service type of the UE is not associated with a specific 5QI, a latency requirement of a service of the UE is higher than a threshold of latency, a data rate of the service is below than a threshold of rate, a data amount of the service is below than a threshold of amount, or a time length that data buffered in the UE pending for transmission is below than a threshold of time, (Xu et al., Paragraph 46)],
and sending, by the processing system in response to the determining that the condition satisfies the trigger for switching back, a second instruction to the mobile device, where the second instruction causes the mobile device to disconnect from the non-terrestrial network and to connect to the terrestrial network or another terrestrial network, [The gNB of the NTN cell 152 may transmit a CHO command to the UE 110. The CHO command includes a condition #1 associated with a candidate TN-cell-1 and a condition #2 associated with a candidate TN-cell-2, (Xu et al., Paragraph 54)],
Regarding claim 22, the method wherein the mobile device is a subscriber endpoint device, [Figure 1, UE 110, For a specific UE, when it is located within a serving cell, it may perform a handover to a candidate cell if a CHO condition is met, (Xu et al., Paragraph 33)].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-9 and 14-17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Shukri Taha whose telephone number is 571-270-1921. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:30am-5pm Mon-Fri.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joseph Avellino can be reached on 571-272-3905.
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/SHUKRI TAHA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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